


Pain

by Zoya113



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst? Hurt and comfort? Idk, F/M, fluff at the end, something bad happens but it gets fixed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:57:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21859432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya113/pseuds/Zoya113
Summary: Emma’s bad leg still hurts, and the pain always seems to strike at the least convenient time. Fortunately Paul is pretty good at making it go away.
Relationships: Paul Matthews/ Emma Perkins
Comments: 5
Kudos: 64





	Pain

**Author's Note:**

> This is a vent fic for the time my manager went to Coles off break to go buy a dress & left me alone w the Christmas rush and my POTS kicking in omg

Monday’s were the busiest for morning shifts, but even when Emma showed up for the closing shift business was still coming in swarms. 

Nora was busing back and forth between tables, her hand attached to a tray at all times. Emma was left to man the counter until closing, serving up a new drink or two every five minutes. 

It was fine at first, until two hours into her shift when a jarring pain shot through her bad leg. She cursed under her breath, she knew what that meant. 

“And is that all sir?” She only let the pain show through a small twitch in her customer service voice. She dropped one hand down by her side to put a hand on her scar. “Alright, lovely. We’ll bring that right over to you! Thank you!” 

Nerve pain. It was chronic now, and it hurt like a bitch. It was the worst around the scar on both sides of her thigh, but it spread down into her joints and muscles like burning claws. It was almost impossible to get rid of, and it was a fucker. 

She raised her leg off the floor, trying to keep her breathing steady and calm. If she didn’t panic, she would be able to cope long enough to finish up and get home. 

She bent her leg, resting her knee on the counter an leaning into it to put weight on it. Pressing on the muscles made it better half the time, but made it worse the other half. Fortunately, today was the former. 

She leant back and forth on it, pained breaths coming out as she did so. She could work through it, ever so slowly. She didn’t want to look at the clock to see how many hours she had left though. 

“Emma, god, what’re you doing? Get your leg off the table,” Nora looked up from her work long enough to see what she was doing.

Emma stretched out her leg again begrudgingly, placing it back down on the ground. A jolt of lighting was sent up her leg as it made contact with the floor but she just gritted her teeth and moved through it, stiffly bending her leg back up to keep the weight off it. “Christ, man.” 

“What?” Nora asked, her back turned to Emma as she collected a tray of drinks. “Come on, get a move on.”

“Sorry, Nora,” Emma sighed, scratching her temple so she could dig her nails into her skin for a moment. She needed to clear her train of thought away from the pain in her leg and back to serving customers. “I’m on it.” 

As she served through customers, she started to bounce her bad foot on the ground to try and work out the pain, she panted through her gritted teeth. She wanted to ask Nora to cover for her for a moment so she could grab the pain killers from her bag.

She watched Nor drop off a drink at a table in the corner, waiting for her to make her way back. But she paused to make some polite conversation with the table she was serving.

Emma glanced over her shoulder at the backroom door, bouncing her foot a little harder, hard enough for another spasm of pain that she had to quickly bite down as a customer came up to order. 

“Hi, can I help you?” For a split second the pain grew so bad it reached up to her head, and the blood rushed to her ears. “Oh, sorry, excuse me?” 

“I said an Americano, take away,” the man requested. “And I’m in a bit of a rush too.” He was tapping his card up against the eftpos machine even though it wasn’t set up yet. 

“Alright sir. I’ll get right on that for you,” she ran his order through so the machine would finally accept his card.

But the trouble was, now he was just standing there waiting. He wanted it right now. Usually they moved away from the register so the barista on counter could serve someone else, but he just stood and waited. 

“Sorry man, you’ll just have to take a step aside so I can serve the woman behind you,” she gestured. 

“But my coffee?” He reminded her in some sort of baby-talk voice like she had forgotten. 

“Yeah man. I’ll get right to it but it’ll be easier for me to get everything done if you let me serve the woman behind you.” When her leg hurt this much, it was easy for her register to drop. She could push back just a little against customer stubbornness when the pain in her leg was more than she could take. 

Begrudgingly, he stepped aside so Emma could serve the next person in line.  
Even just simple work like that could take the breath out of her when she was like this. 

She started up the two orders, stealing a look at Nora who was still out on the floor, and then at the backroom door again. Nora had been gone this long, she wouldn’t be there to tell her off if she darted back to grab her pills would she? 

She bounced her foot faster, trying to take in deep breaths to remain level headed as she worked on their drinks. 

She made the lady’s first because she wasn’t being an asshole. And then when she started work on the Americano, Nor came back, grabbing the next tray of drinks.

“Oh! Nora! Could you cover for me for one sec?” She rushed to finish up the drink so she could grab Nora, not even bothering with the little in between steps like getting the bubbles out of the pitcher. 

“What for? We’re busy?” She had fallen behind on the orders because she had stopped to talk to that table. 

“I need to go grab my pain killers because I-“

Nora gave an annoyed sigh. “Emma, you’re gonna get drugged up during rush hour? We can’t deal with you being slow! There are only two more hours until we’re closing, can you just hang on until it’s not as busy?” 

Emma swallowed and sighed. “Yeah, sure. I’m okay,” she rolled her ankle, starting to let it twitch just to take her attention away from the pain. She served up the two coffees to the waiting customers and started wiping the bench down in long waves that made her lean her whole body so she had to put more effort into hanging on with her hands to keep herself upright, and less attention to her leg. 

The worst part about the nerve pain was that it was almost impossible to ignore, and sometimes Emma got too extreme trying to cancel out the stabbing feeling, and the only thing she could think of doing was making something else hurt worse. But it wasn’t that bad yet. She could handle it. Just until the rush died down, and then she could grab her pills and get going. 

But for now, the pain was starting to break the boundaries on something she could handle. It made something rise in her throat that she just had to deal with it. She raised it back up off the ground, biting down hard on her lip when that didn’t even muffle the pain. 

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Just keep breathing. She pushed her palm to the top of her thigh above the scar where it hurt most, and tried to massage away the pain. 

When she looked up for a brief second she caught Nora’s eye. She had finished busing tables and was just waiting to get past a customer who was standing in the way of the path, too fixated on reading the menu to hear Nora ask him to move.  
Seeing that as of now everyone had been served, she nodded at Emma to say she could go and get her medicine. 

And she was already turning around to limp off to the backroom when someone cleared their throat behind her. “Hey.”

With a wince, Emma froze up. In the feverishness of her thoughts she seriously contemplated just leaving whoever was talking to her behind in favour of getting those pain killers. But the thought cleared up and she remembered her responsibilities. “Hi, can I help you?”  
Except it was the customer she had already served, the Americano guy.

“Yeah. Can you remake this?” 

Emma glanced at the half drunken cup and then back up at him. “What’s wrong?” 

He made a face like he had to think about what he was saying and while Emma smiled for the first two seconds, after about six seconds of silence her patience was cut short. She needed those meds. 

“Well, it wasn’t made very well.”

“Well I’m sorry sir,” she didn’t know what to do. None of their coffee was made well. “I can remake it if you’d like.” She didn’t want to retaliate too much because she knew she had in fact rushed it. 

“Can you get someone else to make it?” 

The insult went in one ear and out the other. Emma didn’t care. “Nora!” She called out too loud, the whole cafe fell silent for one second to see what was happening. 

Her boss was still stuck behind the customer looking at the menu and gave her a bothered look.

“She’ll be one second, sir,” she tried not to let her expression show her bother, but she wasn’t too successful. She glanced over her shoulder at the door again, but she couldn’t leave the customer standing. 

“Well this coffee was awful. It was half cold.” 

“I’m very sorry to hear that sir,” she couldn’t even put any sort of emotion into her words, and her fake-sympathetic frown was twisting into a grimace. 

“I’d like a refund. I could have probably made a better coffee myself. How long have you been working here?” 

“Well if you think you can make a better coffee then go do it at your own place, man!” She snapped. “Take it or leave it!” 

Nora had reached the counter by this point, and her jaw dropped at what Emma had just said. Her eyes were wide with horror. “Go get them and stay back there until I come and talk to you!” She hissed, turning back to the customer to try and start on the damage control.  
“Sorry, she’s not used to being nice,” she heard Nora apologise.

She didn’t care. She just slammed the break room door and raced to her backpack, tearing everything out and ravaging through its contents like a wild beast. She found the pillbox tangled up in her jacket, and when she tried to yank the two apart the jacket found a way to twist around the box and refused to let it go. 

“Oh fucking come on!” She cursed, popping open the lid and shoving the two pills down her throat, chasing them down with a sip of water from her bottle. 

And they never kicked in immediately unfortunately, but she took solace in knowing the pain would dull. 

She stayed on the floor, her bad leg stretched out to her side while her other was folded in so she could rest her head on the pillows of the couch. 

She listened to the throbbing of her head, her hand trying to work at the muscles of her thigh again to roll out the pain. Sometimes it was just as bad as if the rebar had never come out. If she closed her eyes and pictured it hard enough, she could torture her mind into believing she was right back there at the helicopter crash. And that old horror was just almost a welcome distraction to her current situation. 

She didn’t want to check the clock because she knew she still had more than an hour left, but she checked anyways, and flinched back with an angry growl when she saw the time, slamming her head back down on the couch because she didn’t care about the pain. 

It was hard to massage the right spot, she couldn’t get the right angle of her thigh to dull the pain, but for now she would have to deal with a shitty massage to cope until the meds kicked in. 

“God, Emma. You can’t talk to customers like that!” Nora had her hands on her hips as she entered. “That’s completely unacceptable, Jesus Emma!” 

Emma groaned. She wouldn’t be surprised if she was fired. 

“What’re you doing on the floor?” 

Emma shook her head. She should probably get up, but the most she could do was raise herself up onto the couch and cling at her leg. “My leg hurts.”

“Yeah, duh. I figured! You must be addicted to those things Emma!”

“I’m not. Nerve pain just-“ the meds we’re starting to work, so she figured she should put in the effort to filter her words. “Hurts really bad.” 

Nora rubbed her forehead, clicking her tongue and shutting her eyes. “Did you get your pills or not?” 

“I’m on them.” 

“Okay. Good. You stick to the machines and I’ll do drinks. If you yell at a customer again you’re done here, got it?”

Emma nodded. She should probably have been feeling grateful, but the pain took up all the room in her body and she was too full to feel anything else. 

Nora looked like she was going to rage but calmed herself back down to something a little more acceptable. “He wanted you fired. And if you didn’t work half the shifts at this place you would be out of here.” She clicked her fingers at the door, her piercing glare pinning Emma to her spot. “Now get out there.” 

Emma nodded again. She should just do as she was told. A sick sweat was crawling down her skin, and her eyes were losing focus.

She stayed to the machines, it was better because she didn’t have to walk back and forth, and she could stand on one leg. She didn’t have to look anyone in the eye either, but it was nerve-wracking and uncomfortable to be so close to her boss. 

From that point on she didn’t care about all the little injuries that were accruing. The splashed from boiling water or the paper cuts from the sleeves of takeaway cups or the burns from picking up a too-hot pitcher all became menial and unimportant. She planned to let them happen but they never made the pain in her leg go away. 

It was throbbing now, and Emma’s mind was slowing down. She stopped reacting to the small things, she just got on with her job, counting down the time in her head. 

One hour left, fifty minutes, forty seven minutes, forty two minutes. It was really like time was slowing down with her. 

“Emma, c’mon. I asked for that black coffee two minutes ago. The pitcher is right there! People are waiting!” Nora huffed, pushing Emma aside to pour the drink herself. “I hate it when you have to take those pills. You lose your head. Can you even heard what I’m saying?” 

Emma stumbled back until she found the wall, and she leant against it to take some weight off her leg. “Yeah. I can hear you.”

“You’re getting slow. Can you wake up a bit?” 

“Uhuh. Sorry Nora.” She limped back into her work spot, raising her leg up again and pressing her foot into her knee to stand like some sort of human flamingo. 

The pain had jaded to just a full-body pulsing. Her eyelids were feeling heavy, and she stopped being so aware of how slowly she was moving. It was better, she would have loved to be laying down right now. As Emma was waiting for the machine to finish filling up the cup she was on she reached down to rub her thigh again.

But then Nora took a step back to grab a drink Emma had finished, bumping into her shoulder and subsequently causing her hand to press into her thigh, and the pain flared up again. 

The pain killers were working enough for her not to yell out loud, so she gulped and rolled her head back. She bit down on her tongue until it was almost a comparable pain to her thigh. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she kept her voice low so Nora wouldn’t scold her. 

It was like a knife had been stabbed right back through the bone, and jarring spasm of pain snaked through her veins. She started to pant, her breaths shallow and forced. A white, blinding pain was exploding inside her skull and her vision blurred. 

She needed something to take it all away. Any sort of relief from the pain in her leg if only for just a second. She needed something to hurt more. And open pitcher of boiling water was starting to look incredibly appealing. 

“Woah, hey! What are you doing?” She felt Nora’s rough hand close around her wrist as her hand hovered above the pitcher. 

Emma hadn’t even noticed what she was doing, and she shared the same frightened look as her boss. “Sorry, I couldn’t think right,” she withdrew her hand, holding it to her neck. Glad the spasm had passed and Nora stopped her. 

“Wow. Your brain gets slow when you’re on those things.” Nora hung her head and shook it, pointing out to the floor. “Go start wiping down the tables. We’ll close soon.” 

Emma nodded, picking up her rag and clutching it tight like a safety blanket. “Sorry Nora.”

“You should see a doctor about those pills.”

Emma probably should. They weren’t effective enough, but still were able to ruin her whole day. 

She counted down the minutes as they dragged by. She limped from table to table like it was some sort of workout.  
She finished wiping down the second last table when the dizziness of the medicine and the pain struck back up.

She sunk down to squat on the floor for a moment, her back to the counter. 

“What are you doing, Emma?” Nora asked, a hint of concern somewhere in her bossiness. 

“Sorry, I thought someone dropped something under the table. I’m just getting down to look.”

“What did they drop?” Nora asked, sceptical yet suspicious. 

Emma waved a hand to get Nora to go back to minding her own business. “I thought it was an earring but it was just a crumb or some shit.” 

“Alright. Well get off the floor and get that last table done. Then I’ll close up on my own.”

“Thanks Nora,” Emma was quivering with relief as she did a half-hearted job at finishing off the last table. She dumped the rag in the sink behind the counter and mumbled another round of thanks before hurrying out to the car. What a day she had picked to drive herself home.

She would call Paul or Hidgens but that would take so much longer to get home to her bed and her stronger medicine than it would to drive herself. Very luckily for her, she only needed her good leg to work the pedals. 

The drive home was an anxiety-inducing, painful and slow five minutes. And once she got there she realised she didn’t have her keys, so she pounded on the front door so Paul would come to open it faster. 

“Emma, Emma, is everything okay!?” He asked as he swung open the door, one arm out as if to catch her if she fell. He scanned her up and down to try and find out what was so urgent.

Emma nodded. “I’m okay. I just need to get inside.” She pushed past his hand, stumbling to the first aid kit to pull out her proper pain killers. They were ones so strong they slowed her mind down together to the point she could barely think straight. 

Paul stepped aside to let her through, closing the front door and watching Emma with frightened eyes. “Emma? Are you okay?” 

The question made Emma release the breath in her lungs in such a way she sounded like she was about to whimper and burst into tears. “My fucking leg hurts today.” 

“Nerve pain?” Paul asked, creeping up to her, afraid of getting in her way when she was so desperate for relief. 

She nodded, pulling a cup from the drawers to half-fill with water as she downed the pill. 

He held her shoulders to have her turn and face him before placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. It got a hopeful yet tired giggle out of her at least.  
“Come lay down on the couch, Emma. You can relax now, and you’ll be okay, okay?” 

“Okay.” Emma nodded drowsily and miserably, allowing Paul to take up her arm and walk her slowly over to the couch, patient with her limp. 

He sat down first so she could put her legs over him and sink down into the couch with a pathetic whimper.

Paul started with his hand on her knee, his thumb rubbing circles into the skin just to soothe her quiet cries. With his other hand, he grabbed the remote to turn on the TV and turn up the volume. He knew Emma hated being vulnerable, and she would probably like something to cover up her snivelling. 

Once the TV was set, he gave Emma one hand to hold onto as his other slipped up her thigh to hover lightly over her scar. 

She nodded her head to give him permission to touch it, and once he did the pain started to ebb away. 

He could get his fingers to the muscles in her legs just right. He pressed up against the skin, feeling the knots in her muscles and smoothing them out. 

She bit her lip and squirmed occasionally when he had to press too hard, but she didn’t want to complain anymore. 

Paul’s fingertips switched from featherlight touches across the skin of her thigh to pressing and squeezing at the bones, he knew just where to work to get the pain away. 

“Y’know,” Emma started, her heavy eyes closed and her jaw a little slack. “Sometimes it’s not just the nerves. It’s the joints and the muscle and the bone. The whole thingy.” Her words were slurred from the pain killers now, and she looks half asleep. 

“Yeah. I’m really sorry. I know this happens a lot.”

“Hidgens says it’s gonna be chronic.” 

It took a second for Paul to decipher the professor’s name, as she hadn’t quite pronounced it right. 

“Because all the uhh...” she didn’t have a word in mind so she just lifted the finger closest to her leg to imply the whole of it. “It’s all fucked from the crash.”

Paul wasn’t going to bring up the seatbelt thing. Something told him it wasn’t appropriate right now. “I bet,” he said instead, his hand working its way through a kink in her tense muscles. 

She shivered and moaned as it came out, laying a hand across her forehead. “It fuckin’ hurts.”

“I know. But is it starting to feel better at least?” He asked, stopping for a moment just to stroke her hand. 

“Mhm,” she nodded. “Feels better.”

“You’re sorta conked out their, babe,” he ran a hand through her hair.

“Mhm,” she said again, her voice growing more and more mumbly. “I’m exhausted. Shitty day at work.” 

“D’you wanna tell me about it?” He asked her, his fingertips returning to dancing over the scar to relax the muscles. 

She let out a chuckle that she didn’t open her mouth for. “You have good hands,” she told him, one of hers groping around to try and entwine their fingers. 

He gave it to her, examining all the small cuts and burns on her smooth skin.

“It started hurting like an hour or sumthin’ into my shift.” Her head rolled to the side. “And there was this dumb customer. And then she wouldn’t let me go get my medicine...” she yawned. “Maybe that’s illegal. Izzit?” 

He laughed, catching the exact moment she fell right asleep, but her eyes blinked back open and she let out a groan. “Huh?”

“You feel asleep for a second Em. Do you want me to turn the TV down?”

She nodded. 

“Do you wanna get up and go to bed?” 

She shook her head. Patting the couch with her hand. 

“You wanna stay here?” He asked, laying down besides her and holding her to his chest, their legs crossing. He was careful to keep her sore leg on top so it wasn’t being touched. He could feel her sleepy breathing. Her mouth was hanging open to the point she was almost snoring. 

Emma held one of his hands in both of hers, ensuring her head was tucked underneath his so she could hear his breathing too. 

And then he heard her breathing change patterns as she fell asleep for real this time. The poor, sleepy girl. 

He snickered, turning the TV off. For now, they could stay here. They would probably both wake up at four after a shitty sleep and they would both have to stumble to their bed to get one or two more hours of sleep. But just for now, Here was fine.  
“I’ll take that as a yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me writing everything post apotheosis to project my chronic illnesses onto characters as a coping mechanism


End file.
